The long-standing East Mesa Longbow Gulf Club has its eyes on the expansion of mixed-use development.

Last year the Longbow Golf Club in east Mesa, celebrated its 20th anniversary. Considered one of the best walking courses in the Valley, Longbow is consistently ranked among the top 20 courses in the state and among the top 100 in the U.S. It has hosted numerous junior, collegiate and professional championship tournaments and boasts one of the most vibrant junior golf development programs in the southwest. A 30,000-person fan following and 4,000-person strong loyalty program also speaks to its enormous popularity.

Longbow Golf Club is the 165-acre centerpiece of the 315-acre Longbow Business Park and Golf Club site that developer, Daedalus Real Estate Advisors, LLC, aims to one day invigorate into a thriving modern mixed-use development. In the past year, the site has seen two 10-acre projects completed and a few upcoming projects are chipping away at the 150 acres set aside for development. “It’s a good start,” says General Manager, Bob McNichols, but he candidly admits that the completed projects only scratch the surface of the site’s potential.

More on deck

In the past year, Longbow Gateway One, a 148,000 square-foot modern warehouse facility was built by Opus Development Company LLC. The industrial site, at the southeast corner of Higley Road and East Longbow Parkway, fills a need to attract large industrial users in northeast Mesa. Longbow Marketplace, a 75,000 square-foot community retail center at the southwest corner of Recker Road and East Longbow Parkway, recently completed its Phase 1 by Kitchell Development. The busy corner retail parcel is home to Sprouts Farmer’s Market, Verizon, Club Pilates, MOD Pizza, In-N-Out Burger, men’s and women’s salons and other retailers.

Up next, in late 2018, construction of another seven acres will commence for Fat Cats, a 60,000 square-foot family entertainment center with a seven-screen movie theatre, a twenty-lane bowling alley, indoor glow golf, a wide array of arcade games and food and beverage service. In 2019, a 3-acre site is set for completion of a 107 room Hilton Home 2 Suites hotel. An adjacent 4-acre hotel site will be developed after the Hilton project is completed.

Longbow Business Park saw considerable interest from developers in 2003 all the way up to 2008. Big plans were scrapped when The Great Recession ground virtually all Valley development to a halt for four years. In 2012, McNichols started to see more developers considering re-entering the market. For McNichols and his team, the ultimate dream is to follow through on a mixed-use vision with multi-family (sometimes known as workforce housing) units complementing retail and other commercial and employment uses.

Post-recession business park and employment development concepts nationwide are shifting to include housing. The successful business park of today includes a greater mix of uses with employment sites and McNichols and his team was open to embracing the shift. His team looked to the City of Mesa for a change in the development plan to incorporate workforce housing, but city officials have so far rejected the mixed-use concept.

“We’re encouraged that there is some development happening today, but discouraged by the lack of support and cooperation from the City of Mesa,” McNichols added. “We have to approach this differently. The successful development plan today is totally different than what had been envisioned 18 years ago.”

McNichols contends that bringing residential development to the area will support retail and build a population base that could feed area employers with workforce talent, and it would be something different than the primarily single-family home development seen in Mesa.

McNichols hears only compliments from golfers about the unique planes that fly over Longbow Golf Club from Falcon Field.

“I tell people ‘You pay for the golf, the airshow is free,’” he added.

To learn more about development opportunities at the Longbow Business Park and Golf Club, visit: daedalusllc.com.

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